didn’t steal from Lenny.’
The hard metal butt of the gun slammed into the bridge of Andrew’s nose. He screamed in pain.
‘Don’t lie to me! I have proof. One more lie and I will shoot you in the head. Do you believe me?’
Andrew Preston nodded. He believed her. If this had been the old Grace, he would have appealed to her compassion. But the old Grace was clearly dead and gone. Andrew Preston had no doubt that the woman in front of him would put a bullet through his brain without hesitation.
‘How much?’
‘About three million altogether. Over a number of years. But I wasn’t lying. I didn’t steal from Lenny. I took the money from Quorum. It was always my intention to pay it back eventually.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No. I couldn’t. Maria’s debts …’ He started to cry. ‘She spent so much she started going to loan sharks. It’s an illness with her, Grace. An addiction. She can’t help herself. I had no idea how bad things had gotten. Then one day some people came to the house. Violent people. Killers. I wouldn’t have cared for myself, but they were threatening to hurt Maria. They showed me pictures.’ He shuddered. ‘I won’t forget those images as long as I live.’
Grace thought of Lenny’s bloated, headless corpse lying on a slab in the morgue.
‘So you stole from the fund and Lenny found out?’
Andrew hung his head. ‘Yes. I thought I’d covered my tracks. The SEC was investigating us but they never caught on. I guess Lenny was smarter than all of them.’
‘And that’s why you killed him? So you could keep stealing, keep paying off these gangsters?’
Andrew looked at her with genuine surprise. ‘Killed him? No way did I kill him. I stole from Quorum and that was wrong. But I would never have hurt Lenny. He was a good friend to me.’
‘Please!’ Grace laughed bitterly. ‘Lenny knew what you’d done. He and John were discussing it in Nantucket. You were scared he was going to fire you, or turn you over to the authorities, so you killed him.’ She released the safety catch on the gun. Her hand was shaking. ‘I don’t believe you only took three million. You took all of it. You stole all those billions and made it look like it was Lenny.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘You killed him! I know it was you!’ Grace was hysterical
Andrew Preston closed his eyes. At least it would be a quick death.
I wonder if Maria will miss me?
Mitch Connors lay on his bed, reading. Davey Buccola was a bottom-feeder, but he was a meticulous bottom-feeder. His report was diligently researched. Of course, a lot of the information was hearsay, based on unofficial interviews with staff at the coroner’s office or the Nantucket coast guard. Less than half of it would have stood up in court. But the overall picture it painted, of a wealthy man surrounded by false friends, parasites and hangers-on, rang horribly true.
Mitch imagined Grace reading it. If it made him sick, how would she feel, wading through the sticky web of half-truths, greed and deception spun by her nearest and dearest? No wonder she hadn’t turned to any of them when she broke out of Bedford. With friends like the Brooksteins had, who needed enemies?
The only problem with the information was that there was so much of it. Too many people had had the motive and the opportunity to do away with Lenny Brookstein. Mitch thought, Grace is following these leads, just like I am. Where would she go first?
Andrew Preston opened his eyes. He’d been waiting for Grace to shoot him, but so far the expected bullet hadn’t come. He was surprised to see her cheeks were wet with tears.
‘I want you to admit it,’ she sobbed. ‘I want you to say you’re sorry.’
‘Grace. I am sorry for what I did. But I didn’t kill Lenny and that’s the honest truth. I was in New York the day he died. Remember?’
‘I know you were. And I know what you were doing there. You were paying off a hit man.’ Grace reached into a rucksack and pulled out a photograph. ‘Donald Anthony Le Bron. I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t recognize him?’
Andrew’s face drained of color.
‘No. I recognize him. And you’re right, he is a hit man. He works for a Dominican gang known as the DDP. It stands for Dominicans Don’t Play, which is something of an understatement, as it turns out.’ He laughed nervously. ‘And yes, I did hire Le Bron. But not to kill Lenny.’
Grace hesitated. ‘Go on.’
‘They said they were debt collectors. “Legitimate businessmen,” that’s how they described themselves. They came to the house and showed me pictures of women being raped and mutilated. They said Maria would be next. Then a month before the Quorum Ball, one of them showed up at the office. He brought a severed finger, wrapped in kitchen towel.’ Andrew closed his eyes at the memory. ‘I’d paid off what Maria owed by then, but they still came back for more. They wanted interest, hundreds of thousands. It was never going to end. I couldn’t go to the police, in case they found out about the money I’d stolen from Quorum. So I contacted Le Bron. He and his people took care of it.’
Grace tried to take this in. When she’d read the file entry about Andrew’s embezzlement and learned of his contacts with the New York gang, she was sure she’d found her man. It all made sense: the thefts Lenny had discovered were the tip of the iceberg. In reality, Andrew must have been siphoning off billions from Quorum’s coffers, cooking the books to make it look like Lenny was the thief. Then he’d hired a professional hit man to murder Lenny, and stood by and watched while Grace took the blame. But listening to Andrew talk, watching the horror on his face as he remembered the threats made to Maria, she was convinced he was telling her the truth.
Andrew Preston was not Lenny’s killer.
It was a crushing blow.
‘Lenny was like a father to me, Grace, and I betrayed him. I’ll carry the guilt of that with me till the day I die. But I never wanted him dead. Not like Jack Warner.’
Grace had read Davey’s file on Jack, too. She knew about the gambling debts and Lenny’s refusal to pay them. But it hardly amounted to a motive for murder. Besides, Jack’s alibi was rock solid. The coast guard had rescued him miles away from where Lenny’s boat was found.
‘Jack was mad at Lenny. I know that.’
‘Mad?’ Andrew looked surprised. ‘He hated him, Grace. Lenny had Warner over a barrel. He knew all of his dirty little secrets. Everyone in the Senate knew that Jack Warner was Quorum’s puppet, that he voted however Lenny Brookstein told him to vote. Lenny squeezed Jack like a wet rag. The guy couldn’t breathe.’
Grace looked disbelieving. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t like that. Lenny would never have blackmailed Jack. He would never have blackmailed anyone.’
Andrew Preston smiled. It was a flash of the old Grace. Unquestioning, adoring, convinced that Lenny could do no wrong. Not that he blamed her. Andrew knew better than anyone what
